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Were this more than a passing mood, it would be painful indeed that Petrarch should have lived to deem his devotion to Laura misspent, and nothing short of ludicrous that he should have accused himself of missing by hisCanzoniere the renown which epics or tragedies might have ensured him. Such a passing mood it must have been, for it is contradicted by the succeeding pieces. The book concludes with an impassioned hymn to the Virgin, which may have suggested to Goethe the analogous conclusion ofFaust.

TheCanzoniere is completed by theTrionfi, allegorical shows entirely in the taste of the Middle Ages, which we shall find repeated in Francesco Colonna’sPolifilo. Petrarch successively sings the might of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity, set forth in the long processions of their captives or votaries. A certain circumscription is essential to the full display of Petrarch’s genius, andterza rima, a metre favourable to diffuseness, does not exhibit his powers to such advantage as the severe restriction of his sonnets and canzoni. The poem, nevertheless, if a little garrulous, charms by deep feeling and a succession of delightful if not transcendent beauties. The finest portion is the Triumph of Death, when Laura appears, and addresses the poet to much the same effect as in his sonnets written after her decease. “L’on est vraiment touché de voir que dans un âge avancé Pétrarque ne se consolait encore de l’avoir perdue qu’en se rappelant et se retraçant dans ses vers tout ce qui lui faisait croire que Laura en effet l’avait aimé” (Ginguené). It was begun in 1357, and is not entirely complete, though Petrarch continued to add and retouch until within a very short time of his death. The last lines relate to Laura, who, present or absent, is always the inspiration of the poem. Petrarch evidently wrote greatly under the influence of his reminiscences of Dante, and this may account for his unwillingness, frequently attributed to unworthy jealousy, to concern himself with his predecessor in his latter years. He knew that Dante’s spirit was more potent than his, and feared to be subjugated by it, as has happened to many. He has himself been imitated by Shelley in the Triumph of Life.